THE EKALAVYA RELATION

EKALAVYA’ S THUMB AND GOVERNANCE OF TRANSLATION : TRANSLATION, COLONIALISM AND ‘OTHER’ EKALAVYA’ S THUMB AND GOVERNANCE OF TRANSLATION DEBAPRASAD BANDYOPADHYAY INDIAN STATISTICAL INSTITITUTE
PowerPoint Presentation: In the great Indian epic Mahabharata , the legendary hero with so-called “tribal” origin, Ekalavya , after being refused by the royal preceptor Dronacarya , the military-trainer, made himself well equipped in the art of archery through dedicated practice in front of a clay-model of Dronacarya. However, he had to pay gurudaksina (‘paying the preceptor’, from whose absence he learnt the techne of archery) to Dronacarya by cutting his right thumb that acts as a liver to shoot the arrow. In this way, Dronacarya succeeded to retain the royal dominance of his royal disciples and to erase subaltern mastery.
PowerPoint Presentation: “……[a] fter repeated rectifications I could not touch even the outer boundary of the original texts, but I have been able to establish an Ekalavya relationship with those epic poets (whose voices I have tried to echo) , through these endless modifications.” -- Sudhindranath Dutta (1954/1984:254)
PowerPoint Presentation: 30.10.1901- 25.06.1960
PowerPoint Presentation: Sudhindranath Dutta (30.10.1901-25.06.1960), a Bengali poet cum theoretician, in his introduction to the Bengali translation of English, German and French verses (the collection is named as ‘’ Protiddhoni ’’ meaning “echo”), compared the relationship between “original” Source Language Text and its “translated” Target Language Text to the relationship between Dronacarya and Ekalavya . This Ekalavya-relation , as stipulated here, is almost like Shakespeare’s Aerial-Prospero relation, where Prospero is speaking through the voice of Aerial. Ekalavya, as it was told in the Mahabharata, cannot do without the icon of Dronacarya . It is a ‘simple’ case of donor-receptor relationship? The question is: Is it so ‘simple’ as one might have been thought?
PowerPoint Presentation: Dronacharya is the donor and the Ekalavya is the receptor and obviously there was no reciprocal exchange in between these two. Now the questions are: --- in the context of translation may we erase the ‘origin al ’ icon of Dronacharya ? When translating, is anyone licensed to kill the author without being colonized by the original author(- ity )? --- d oes the act of translation lead to subversive as well as disruptive performance?
PowerPoint Presentation: Taking cue from this Dronacharya-Ekalavya relation, from now on, the Source Language Text will be called Dronacharya -Text (henceforth DT) and Target Language Text as Ekalavya -Text (henceforth ET). In this complex and entwined relationship between DT and ET, let’s see if we can find a de- sign…….
PowerPoint Presentation: T his dominator-dominated relationship always sustains in case of any translation: subaltern ET always(?) suffers and dominant DT unknowingly enjoys the sacrifice of ET. However, we cannot take this simplified story as truism. It inaugurates another question: When a White Man (sexism intended) is translating colony’s text, does the same hierarchy of relations between DT and ET persist? Are we being allowed to write a context-free formulae or matheme like this DT=f (ET )? Does this equation persist in all cases? What are the sufficient and necessary conditions for such equation?
PowerPoint Presentation: Secondly , any person can establish a context-free functional equation with another person without inhibiting him-/herself about respective cultures. However, in this seemingly simple equation, colonial politics appears without invitation with a few question marks of its own. Thus one might have to talk about context-sensitive hierarchical relationship shunning off such simple equation.
PowerPoint Presentation: Thirdly, when an accomplished scholar-poet, Sudhindranath Dutta, after years of concentrated dedication to one single goal, ruefully accepted in the introduction of his/her work that he failed to capture the essence of the originals, that he was only able to play the role of Ekalavya, does that not deceives the readers of their righteous ideological satisfaction? does the Ekalavya -Text smuggle its own voice into the Dronacarya -Text , smothering the intentions of the creator in the process? are the readers of the ET being deceived the ET? If the ET-writer is a smuggler, who adulterate the original DT and even does not touch the DT, s/he is then deceiving the native readers. Is it not so?
PowerPoint Presentation: Then how do THEY attest the voice(s) of third world local intellectuals? How do non-/collaborator locals pose their own imagination or masterpiece? The crucial question of freedom is constrained here by the boundary of termination (e.g., a roof’s boundary) if not they are endorsed by the masters of the (academic) universe.
PowerPoint Presentation: Thus, the introductory essays of Dutta’s Pratidhvani / protidhoni / “Echo” inaugurate many such problematic zones of translation studies. Among them I, broadly speaking, am going to mention here only two central problems, the other problems mentioned by Dutta are subsidiary to these two problems related to translation enterprise: Epistemological problem Political or colonial problem.
PowerPoint Presentation: Epistemological problem ‘ ’In my opinion, translation is impossible as it is monism of feeling or understanding and proposition…….” -- Sudhindranath Dutta
PowerPoint Presentation: Dutta opened his file with the “impossibility of translation hypothesis” by the abovementioned quote . Dutta’s unhesitant declaration almost tempts us to abandon translated literature in despair. But before we do that, let us dig the rabbit hole a little deeper as to why and how Dutta reached this conclusion of “IMPOSSIBILITY OF TRANSLATION HYPOTHESIS’’.
PowerPoint Presentation: I nfluence of Croce (1908) is transparently observable in Dutta’s declaration of ‘’monism of feeling or understanding and proposition’’. Dutta, whose intention was literary- trans creation , could never be satisfied with literal translation (or Metaphrase a la Dryden) and would try to search for answer in the binary of monism and dualism.
PowerPoint Presentation: What is noticeable here is that Dutta was initially much more bothered about the indeterminacy of translation depending on the physical law of nature (cf. Quine’s “indeterminacy of translation”-hypothesis, cf. Quine , 1960: Ch.2); on the other hand, surprisingly enough, he was emphasizing on the hermeneutic circle or the gap between perception and understanding by stipulating poetry as an advaita (monism or non-dualism, dvaita is duality and its antonym is advaita , thus dvaita is a privileged term even in the context of Ramanuja’s visistadvaitavada , a celebrated monistic branch of Indian Philosophy) of proposition and feeling (perhaps Dutta is following Croce, 1908). Here is an example of Dutta’s switching over from mere empiricism (the then dominant discourse in science) to “something else ”………
PowerPoint Presentation: “….. But on a second thought a hardcore realist would be compelled to agree that literary creations are selection dependent and the entry of raw experience is prohibited in poetry: but the spatio-temporal feeling when left as residue in the preconscious evokes turbulence in mind, perhaps sentences endowed with rasa ( “sap or juice of the plant”, though metaphorically used in Indian rhetoric by taxonomizing it in different categoremes) is the end product of it.”
PowerPoint Presentation: That is, the hermeneutic gap between perception and understanding or otherwise feeling in the DT-author and ET-translator creates the main problem engendered by the differences of initial perception. According to Dutta, this non-unity of feeling and expression in course of translation (in the ET, in the context of Bangla language) is love’s labor lost. Therefore, he considered “ All the translations of epic-poets’ texts is just ‘echo’ of the ‘ origin al ’. In the context of Bangla Literature, this ‘echo’ has a definite cross-reference: the first line of Tagore’s famous couplet goes like this, “ echo always ridicules the original sound ” and thus translation is reduced to the mimicry, a partial presence or repetition of the original.
PowerPoint Presentation: Colonial problem
PowerPoint Presentation: As Homi Bhaba (1984) maintained, the comic turn from the high ideals of colonial imagination to its low mimetic literary effects, mimicry emerges as one of the most elusive and effective strategies of colonial power/-knowledge nexus. Colonial mimicry is the desire for a reformed and appropriated other as subject of difference or partial presence that is almost the same, but not quite, i.e., “not quite/ not white”. Mimicry repeats rather than represents and appropriates colonized other. In between mimicry and mockery the area of colonial imitation comes as a civilizing mission, though that may be disrupted or threatened by its disciplined subjects.
PowerPoint Presentation: This ambivalence of mimicry does not merely rupture the discourse but is transformed into an uncertainty that infests modern third world avant grade writings (For detailed discussion cf. Choudhuri et al. 2000). Third world writing which is in the subaltern space under the over-determined synthetic hegemony of the first world, needs constant rectification, appropriation in the presence of iconic transcendental signified of First World Dronacarya , therefore Dutta writes: “…. after much rectification, I have established the Ekalavya-relation with them (DT).”
PowerPoint Presentation: Dutta was considering himself as one of the inappropriate colonial subjects or he could be considered as one of the inheritors of Bengali epic poet Michael Madhusudan Dutta (25.01.1824-29.06.1873) who has rendered refugee in his or her homeland giving birth to a hybrid space in the Bangla literature abandoning his one of many white masks.
PowerPoint Presentation: Dutta was in search of “authentic” and “original” in course of translating the verses from three alien languages. However, he admitted that due to such repeated rectification he could not touch the “essence” of the original DT. He then tried to find out the differences between DT-language and ET-language. He found that “There is heaven and hell difference between Bangla and three source-languages.”, as he noticed that the any positive comments from Europe is understood here by means of negativity and what Bengalis have used here as granted propositions are mere grand-locutions from the gaze of Westerners: “…..At least the sufferers know that some positive propositions of the West are gullible to us through negations, just like that our way of speaking might be considered as pinnacle of gibberish in the West.” (ibid: 253)
PowerPoint Presentation: He also pointed out the language-particular markedness in three Dronacarya -languages to show the asymmetry between Bangla and other three European languages ( overdetermined sameness with differ a nces ); those comparative comments are not linguistically considered here, but to understand the discursive formation of Dutta or perception of Dutta as a Ekalavya -translator one must look into these comments that go like this: “ English has a merry grammar endowed with easement; French is infatuated with adjectives; German has the syntax and the use of frequent compounds; though these are not fully unavailable in Bangla, there is a gulf of difference among these languages.” (ibid)
PowerPoint Presentation: He also noticed that “The mimicry of these three languages is against the nature (?) of Bangla Language”. (emphasis added) Thus, Bangla is lacking something—it is an “inappropriate” language. So, he did not want to be a part of mimic-enterprise by pointing out what is lacking in Bangla and by positioning Bangla in a space which lacks the supposed presence of Dronacarya’s competence (though biolinguistically this proposition is not to be accepted— Dutta , as a colonial subject [He started translations from 1932] perceived such lacking with colonially imposed inferiority complex). From here, Dutta made readers to switch over from sameness with differences to the hierarchies of differences , which has born out of colonialism and these differences have nothing to do with ‘ modern’ linguistics per se.
PowerPoint Presentation: What to do then to combat such asymmetry? Dutta syncreticized the two different codes of Bangla—Sadhu(so-called H Sanskritized code) and colit (so-called L code, this dichotomy is generally referred to as diglossia ). This synthesis is condemned as “ guru- conDali doS ” (the fault of syntagmatic co-occurrence of two castes) , e.g. metri -causal exclusion-inclusion of Sadhu verbs and pronouns and use of grand-locutions. This hybrid is banned by the Language-Judges, Language-Polices and Language-Managers (the members of the civil ized society, another mimic enterprise) of the Modern Bangla Nation State. As it is a fault, guru (obviously a brahmin by caste) is restricted to occur with cOnDa l (a low caste by birth, working in the crematorium for burning the dead bodies), i.e. Sadhu cannot occur with colit bhaSa . The compound gurucOndali shows the antithetical relationship between Brahman and cOndal ( Dronacarya and Ekalavya ) and that corresponds to the relation of codes.
PowerPoint Presentation: The non- discursivity of Brahmanical culture and ideology is reflected in the code and ritualistic pattern of sacred discourse, which could not be disturbed by the writers' consensual and/or profane interventions in it. However, this hierarchy was subverted by Dutta . Thus, Dronacarya-Ekalavya relation also evokes into the discourse-body of the ET. A new imagiNATION of Bangla language was born to cooperate with those epic poets in the synthetic space of colonial translation enterprise. It is to be noted here that Basu (1955) noticed the inflation of Sanskrit words in Dutta’s discourse, when he reviewed the book pratidhvani . In this way L-code, statistically speaking, was marginalized in the texts of Dutta, but n- glossic ( again I am using matheme ) situation arose in the content with the emission of surplus meanings .
PowerPoint Presentation: Translation is often marked as nationalist enterprise as Robert Frost (for detailed discussion cf. Senst , 2001) thought once. In the introduction of (1932), a book of poems by Dutta, Dutta set a task for a poet. The task of a successful (and “modern” of course) poet is to flourish the “ national ” (a derivative concept)mentality (/ jatio manoS / ) in his or her works. According to Dutta, a poet is bound to see his or her experiences by symbolizing the national consciousness in the imaginative and fictitious context of national and modern boundary. This national consciousness, if we have to believe Ben Anderson, is a European derivative that appropriates the imagination of third world writers and gives birth to a synthetic space.
PowerPoint Presentation: In the Orchestra , Dutta said that the structure of western symphony music has influenced the structure of the poem “Orchestra”. It is to be noted that the Bangla poem Orchestra [English in original, 1932] was written long before Elliot’s Four Quartets [1935-42], where Dutta used the word “ miR ” (a grace note obtained by defection of tonal frequency in music; an exclusive phenomenon in Indian music) which is not found at all in the western music.
PowerPoint Presentation: One of the key features of synthetic space is the epistemological amalgamation ( Bandyopadhyay , 1996) of two or many alien as well as competing notions. However, Dutta is reluctant to translate “Christmas” as “ jOnmasTomi ”, the birthday of the Lord Krishna. He did not believe in mythic supplement or this type of cultural exchange, but he was in the course of constructing/ imagining overdetermined synthetic space as it is revealed in the poem Orchestra , where the dominant discourse of the White Space undergoes metonymic transformations.
PowerPoint Presentation: Dutta maintained that, thanks to the westernization of Bengali intellectuals, to Bengali readers “the problem of original and translated version is the same.” This is a pronouncement from a third world (I deliberately use here the phrase “ third world ” to de- sign the sub-super relation that exists among the ordinals) modern writer (a translator cum poet cum literary critique and a scholar-professor [thanks to the efforts of Buddhadeb Basu , the initiator of Comparative Literature Department, Jadavpur University, Kolkata] without a master-degree) who is consciously commenting on his target readers, the “ inappropriate” colonial subjects habituated in mimicry.
PowerPoint Presentation: BUDDHADEB BASU 30.11.1908-18.03.1974
PowerPoint Presentation: This pronouncement of Dutta is ironical because he has full consciousness of the mimicry that emerges due the colonization (e.g., in his pronouncement regarding the mother-tongue enthusiasts who are trained in western literature and of those who are infested by the western ‘folklore’) and at a time he had to subscribe that overdetermined space of synthesis and hybridity.
PowerPoint Presentation: This is a traumatic existence of a third world local writer who wants to achieve the same-ness but as symptomatic other, not as an equal (cf. Choudhuri et al 2000). This is a serious allegation that positions third world readers in a perplexed and a vexed space common in the colonial context. A colonized reader is doubly colonized :
PowerPoint Presentation: S/he has the burden of “other” language which is not within his or her inner habitat and s/he has to understand the translated mimic text or ET, the competence of which is not in the steady state or Speaking/Hearing Subjects. DT-language encroaches or interferes into his/her domain with an appropriating mission and s/he is unable to parametric switch over from one language to another due to the partial subjectivity of the colonized. This perplexing situation is supposed to give birth to partial comprehension and partial production of parole.
PowerPoint Presentation: If we then have to believe Spivak (1988), we also have to believe that subaltern cannot speak. The word “subaltern” includes the colonized inappropriate subjects encompassing third world local writers (representing South/East axis). The colonization of the third world intellectuals makes them, according to Spivak, illegitimate child of the west: a person without a voice of him/her-self, a person who cannot speak globally; a person playing with translated derivatives.
PowerPoint Presentation: This is the lost selfhood which was once referred as I has (1935/1989 i as a third person, a case of lost selfhood of a colonized subject.) by Kedarnath Bandyopadhyay (15.2.1863-29.11.1949). Dutta noticed this threatened existence of third world intellectuals who are, according to Dutta, disturbed by the ‘folklore’ of the West. To describe this as a “dis ease ”, Dutta used the term “ uposOrgo ” which may be translated as “symptom” and can be stretched to the Lacanian notion of “ sinthome ”(cf. Seminar XXII , 1975-76), which is a synthesis of signifying formation between symptom and fantasy that gives birth to a synthetic artificial wo /man who have obtained distance from their fantasy-framework of his/her own realty, but their key symptoms persists.
PowerPoint Presentation: The question is whether this metaphor of ET-DT is also applicable to the incident of translating third world writing by its first world translators. Epistemologically speaking, the ET-DT relation may persist but politically it is not. Politically, a type of role-reversal occurs when first world translates the third world text. Let us exemplify it from Buddhadeb Basu’s (1957) observations.
PowerPoint Presentation: Long before Edward Said (1978), Buddhadeb Basu (1957) pointed out the politics of translation as well as Orientalist gazes. Basu maintained that the European translation enterprise, who rendered Sanskrit text into English or German did not perceived “creative literature endowed with rasa ” in the Sanskrit texts, but the gaze was deployed to understand “Indian mind set” to hegemonize the colonized (1957:4). Basu cited the example of Wilson who translated Meghadutam (composed by Kalidasa) where the notes are devoted to explain the geography, flora and fauna, climatic condition etc. to make an impression of their “good orient” subjects to the European readers with a goal of govern MENTALITY .
PowerPoint Presentation: I am citing Buddhadeb Basu from his introduction to the Kalidasa’s Meghadutam to understand the Orientalist politico-economic intentions of White MAN(sic ): “…….In modern India the study of Sanskrit comes via Europe. Exporting cotton and jute from India, Westerners had brought the finished product as a commodity for selling in Indian markets. Likewise due to their intellectual process Sanskrit studies were transformed into many utilitarian sciences. ” (Basu, 1957:2-3)
PowerPoint Presentation: Thus the first world Dronacarya came forward to maneuver Ekalavya . Role-reversal is also found in the endeavor to translate the Holy Bible in Sanskrit by the Europeans, as Basu mentioned the instance of Baden is to diffuse the Christianity in the mind of colonized, i.e. to reform (civilizing mission!) the inappropriate colonized. Basu (ibid) also noticed the translation enterprise from the part of Europe was proliferated for the sake of Imperialism (know them and rule them—from will to know to the will to power): “…..[b] ut the thing we forget most of the time, the thing which we need to recollect sometimes, that these topics do not fall within boundary of literature, and one can be successful even being indifferent to core of literature. In reality the books on Sanskrit subject are innumerable in European languages but critical literary comment or deep poetic insights within those are negligible.” ( Ibid:3-4)
PowerPoint Presentation: All these enunciations made on 1957 and remained unnoticed until Said (1978) pointed out the hidden desire of Europeans who explored the oriental space for the sake of expansion of empire. This proves that third world writer can speak, but big hearing impaired others (read “Masters of the Universe’ a la Adam Smith) do not hear his or her voice .
PowerPoint Presentation: JOISSANCE OF TRANSLATION
PowerPoint Presentation: From Dutta and Basu’s texts, one may also find out or may think of a space, where ET no longer suffers but from this very space one can transgress from one’s traumatic experience of being a third world local writer and can be sinthomic bearer of joissanse or in Zizek (1994:74)’s word “ jois -sense ”, enjoyment in sense. Zizek’s “ jois -sense “ may be taken as a response to the Dutta’s modernist sense-perception problem as mentioned earlier.
PowerPoint Presentation: The incidence behind Dutta’s translation- endeavour as he said, was not the lack of creativity, it was celebration of self-autonomy or freedom (that is constrained by the constructed boundary) as the limit of translation is against the self-anarchy. This experiment with DT, helped him not to only what is known as plural reading of DT, but what I call as anekanta -reading of text as he mentioned in the aforementioned introduction of the book, Protidhoni : “ Even such successful texts are rare, the intentional meanings of which have not been changed in different space-times or the readers’ power of understanding is not nurtured; and therefore, the different translations of the same verse are natural , at the same time, same verse is not looking alike in same translator’s gaze in different space-times.” (1954/1982: 254)
PowerPoint Presentation: A so-called Modernist Dutta was inaugurating a so-called Anti-/Post-Modernist space—a different site altogether. He was insisting on the plural reading of text and even he was talking about the readers’ response theory! And it was in 1954!!! Was it a colonial non-modern response to the Sahib’s enlightenment –project? Dutta (1957: 201) maintained that whoever had tried to close the anekanta -world in a dogma of one-sidedness, made a closure of their own interpretations .
PowerPoint Presentation: Buddhadeb Basu (1957), who, in course of discussing Sanskrit poetry and modern poems, agreed with such statement. He used one word, " bicchurOn ", which I wish to translate as 'dispersion' of surplus meanings rather than that of lemmatized/digitized static meaning. This, I think, is the “essence” of anekanta -reading of text. Basu (1957:24) emphasized on the different interpretation of a non-disposable single text by single or many readers in different contexts and situations that reveal the anekanta - meaning of text. Basu cited three different lyrics of Rabindranath Thakur ( anglicized as “Tagore”) to show that how does a same word (“flower”) emit different surplus meanings in different space-times to different and same reader/s. (1957:24). Even Basu (1955), in course of discussing Dutta’s aforementioned translation-work, mentioned that the translated verse is not at all a translated verse, but a new competing poetry .
PowerPoint Presentation: To me, it is not even a competing poetry, but a novel representation—a new performance, where translation is not a noun, but a verb — translatizing (sic) ! And that representation represents itself
PowerPoint Presentation: Thus Basu wanted to use DT as musk so that Ekalavya could talk something new, which has not been in the DT: “Oh! What happens, If I would put my own voice in it (DT)?” ET is penetrating DT by unpacking the DT( Basu , 1955). Ekalavya is utilizing the absence, not the presence, of Dronacarya by smuggling his/her voice into the “original” DT without being merged with the corporeal of the DT. ET is filling the gaps/absences/ abhava of DT.
PowerPoint Presentation: Abu Sayeed Ayyub (?-?- 1906-21.12.82 )
PowerPoint Presentation: No doubt, the performance of translation is disruptive activity. Therefore, when Ayyub wrote a Academy Prize winner Bangla book on Rabindranath and modernity (1968), he cited the English translation of French verses of Charles Baudelaire by Francis Scarfe (1961), despite the fact that there is a “beautiful (Bangla) translation” by his friend Buddhadeb Basu. Ayyub avoided his co-worker ET-writer Basu as he thought that Basu’s translation is far from original DT, rather it is a “ transcreation ”( Ayyub , 1968:19, fn. 1), therefore to grasp the cordial and mental attitudes of Baudelaire he had chosen the “nearest” (? How did Ayyub judge this?) ET of Baudelaire in English ET.
PowerPoint Presentation: This is a space innovated by the colonized from the experience of the re-reading or a series of rectified translations of DT and constant thriving for appropriateness which does not work in case of consequences of plural reading of texts. Long before the pronouncement of the plural reading of the text-theory emerged, three literary critiques of Bengal proposed the theory of anekanta in their literary criticisms.
PowerPoint Presentation: Ayyub (1977:30) said that his perception was modified by this concept and was shaped by Rabindranath’s own version of anekantavada (for detailed discussion in Bangla, cf. Bandyopadhyay , 1999 & 2001). Therefore Ayyub praised the endeavour of Kalidas Bhattacharya who (1911-15.3.1984 ) elaborated this concept in his Alternative standpoints of Philosophy ( Ayyub , 1977:30), which Bhattacharya inherited from his philosopher-father Krishnachandra Bhattacharya’s (1875-1949 theory of alternity (it is a fusion/epistemological amalganation of Vedanta, Anekantavada and Kantian critique of pure reason) .
PowerPoint Presentation: P. C . Mahalanabis , from whom Ayyub learned the Relativity theory, also found the foundation of Statistics in the Jaina Philosophy of syadvada in relation to Probability Theory. (Readers , please note that once upon a time, all of them are somehow related to my parent institute, but, it is a matter of regret that there are microscopic inheritors of such philosophy of sciences in our institutes as it stands today. The question is: Why is it so? cf. Rosen, 1985 ).
PowerPoint Presentation: It is worth mentioning here that this principle was not only used in the sphere of literary criticism or in the philosophical discourse but also used in case of so-called natural science. D.S. Kothari (1985) also justified Mahalanabis ’ position as he noticed the similarity of Niels Borh’s complementary principle. J.B.S. Haldane (1957), following Mahalanabis , also noticed in the syadvada , in reference to the then Philosophy, the position of conclusion intermediate to certainty and uncertainty. Haldane mentioned one crucial thing in connection with syadvada that is known today as halting problem of Turing machine, which can be stretched towards the impossibility of machine translation also. Haldane mentioned paradoxes of Principia Mathematica (1913) , when are given in a machine, the answer from the part of machine would be indeterminate or avyaktyavyah .
PowerPoint Presentation: Thus this is as if a majlis — majlis (assembly, meeting, conference, rendezvous) of anekanta , where sub- alterns ’ “own” imagiNATION flourished not as a residual component, but as a pseudo-subversive element. All these instances showed that there was a proliferation on the discourse on the anekantavada in the middle of the 20 th Century. However that was in oblivion after the triumph of plural reading of text-theory came to invade the third-world print capitalist market. This is another instance of speaking subalterns the voice of whom was not heard by the hearing impaired First World.
PowerPoint Presentation: Or, is it other way round? Dronacaryas of Post-enlightenment period are taking cue from this sale bration of plurality and have subsumed it in their own way? Or , is it a case of counter-hegemony? Or , is it a simple case of diffusion of knowledge(s)?
REVERSE MIMICRY : REVERSE MIMICRY At this point, without answering such questions, I wish to depart from the one-way mimicry-model, instead, want to introduce theory of bi-way reciprocal resemblance, where the specific roles of donor-receptor or host-guest are rather confusing and non-fixed.
PowerPoint Presentation: There are two mirrors—one is reflected on other and therefore, there are infinite reflections (n-reflections). This “model” (?) of reciprocal as well as reverse mimicry is indebted to Vachaspati and Vijnanaviksu , two Indian Philosophers . I am now paraphrasing their standpoint of matter-consciousness duality and their reciprocal resemblance in my own term and in the context of discourse reception between colonizer and colonized.
PowerPoint Presentation: The sa va gery of civilized Sahib is reflected in the colonized mirror and therefore, White MAN was imposing HIS own sa va gery to the mirror. Colonized mirror is looking to the other mirror with different purposes—either to cope with the civilized/sa va ged mirror or intending to break the mirror. Remember, the reflection on the mirror is always a reversal, e.g., the majlis (rendezvous) of anekanta is an antithesis to the monolithic modernist singularity. And it is also a colotage —a case of colonial s U botage (sic. sub ordinate servants cannot spell properly! For detailed discussion cf. Bandyopadhyay et al. 2001)
PowerPoint Presentation: However, anekanta differs from its first world counterpart. What the Jaina philosophers referred to this plurality of truth-seeking logic as ‘ anekanta ’. This anekantavada (philosophy of many perspectives or standpoints) evolves out of the revolt against the monistic absolutism of brahministic authoritarianism, i.e., it is almost like Ekalavya revolting against Dronacarya . They introduced the polylectic (often dubbed as dialectic) of syadvada , which synthesizes the different partial standpoints by denying the metanarrative of absolute.
PowerPoint Presentation: Jaina -theorist affixed 'may be' or ‘somehow’ ( syat ) to mere affirmation or negation or inexplicable phenomena. Thus, it opens up a non-pre-deterministic open-ended project to solve the problem of validity of argumentation. According to this anekanta -Theory, different ways ( nayas ) or standpoints can sort out the validation of truth. They introduced the polylectic of syadvada , which synthesizes the different partial standpoints by denying the metanarrative of the single absolute.
PowerPoint Presentation: The saptabhamgi naya as proposed by the Jaina theorists is an epistemologically amalgamated system of formal and non-formal approaches. Moreover, what is known as poststructuralist plurality of interpretations is supplemented by this sevenfold syadvada as a part of anekantavada , a theory of manifold perspectives. anekanta , unlike plural reading of texts, emphasizes on different probable standpoints by incorporating so-called margin of errors. However, the amalgamations of which do not yield the total meaning as the totality of meaning is not possible at all. It defers as well as differs in different probable perspectives.
PowerPoint Presentation: “REPRESENTATION REPRESENTS ITSELF” What does it mean?
PowerPoint Presentation: Vedanta ( Sankaracharya ) Transcendental Space ( paramarthika jagat ) All-inclusive I/ paramatman The Original Sky Practical Space ( vyavaharika jagat ) “Rope is a Rope ” The Sky as it is reflected in the water of a pot ( ghatakasa ) Illusory world ( Pratibhasika jagat ) “Rope perceived as a snake” The reflected sky painted in a canvas ( patakasa ) Plato’s Cave Real /Original Ideas, objects Shadows (as reflected in the cave[-allegory]-wall Imitative poetries are to be banished from the republic Saussure Signified Signifiers in speaking Signifiers’ signifiers in writing Poetry Dronacarya-poet’s actual perception Writing poetry Ekalavya’s translation The total Scheme Original Copy Copy’s copy
PLATO’S CAVE: PLATO’S CAVE
THE ORIGIN-AL SKY : THE ORIGIN -AL SKY
THE SKY REFLECTED IN A POT [GHATAKASA]: THE SKY REFLECTED IN A POT [GHATAKASA]
THE REFLECTED SKY PAINTED IN A CANVAS: THE REFLECTED SKY PAINTED IN A CANVAS
PowerPoint Presentation: The problem with this scheme is that it is emphasizing on something original, something real…. But, real cannot be real- ized until it is symbolized… real cannot be real ized due to the subjective limit of anthropos …. Let us shun off this metaphysical project…..
PowerPoint Presentation: Without considering such hierarchy of presentations or privileged positions or relative importance s of some categories over another , let us presume that each presentation is individually sovereign presentation and, thus , (re-)presentation (re-)presents itself
UNCHAINING OF RELATIVE IMPORTANCE, PRIVILEGE, HIERARCHY : UNCHAINING OF RELATIVE IMPORTANCE, PRIVILEGE, HIERARCHY
NEW SCHEME : NEW SCHEME The Metaphysical Scheme Original Copy Copy’s copy (re-)presentation (re-)presentation (re-)presentation
PowerPoint Presentation: And that is sovereignty of Ekalavyas … And even for Dronacaryas ….. As we are proposing a domain of horizontal mutual aid, where reciprocal exchanges of ideas are possible without manipulation, domination and hegemony…….
PowerPoint Presentation: And, Leaving weapons, We may take our recourse to ahimsa The doctrine of non-violence….
PowerPoint Presentation: For detailed discussion, browse the following links and if you wish, you may download following papers/books in pdf .-format. 2007. “ তর্জমার তর্জনী বা একলব্যের বুড়ো আঙ্গুল [The Ekalavya Relation: Modernist Locals’ Anti-Modernist Response(s)]” 2007. Das Anirban ed. baNlay binirman , Obinirman .(pp. 306-23) Kolkata: Ababhas . Reprinted from: Jijnasa . 2004. XXIV:2 (pp.150-64) 2002. “The Ekalavya Relation: Translation and Colonialism.” http://ssrn.com/abstract=2251945 2006. তর্জমার তর্জনী বা একলব্যের বুড়ো আঙ্গুল (The Governance of Translation and Ekalavya's Thumb) . Rabindranath’s Translation of Eliot’s “Journey of the Magi” and the plurality of translations. Kolkata: Janapadaprayas . ISBN-81-902893-1-4. http://ssrn.com/abstract=2289101